The Adventure of the Dozen Doctors
by WhovianJack
Summary: **New Chapter Every Other Thursday** Sherlock gets sent into a coma, meets all incarnations of the Doctor up to #11, and gets wrapped up in a war between two alien species that have begun to use humans as hosts. (Most of that comes much later, I'm just previewing.) Co-written with my friend. A prelude was published separately: /s/9240536/1/Never-Ceasing
1. It All Makes Sense at the End

**Author's Note: Co-written with a real-life friend of mine who prefers not to be identified.**** This is the beginning of something much longer - 15+ chapters by the end, if we ever finish it (about a third of it is done so far). This says "epilogue" at the start because the chapters are numbered from the Doctor's perspective, and this chapter features an unspecified future Doctor. ANYWAY...**

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**EPILOGUE: ****It All Makes Sense at the End**

_Sherlock's subconscious_

_No discernible time_

It all started with an odd dream. Sherlock Holmes was sleeping soundly. Very soundly, which was very odd, because never slept soundly. He had trained himself not to. Actually, he rarely slept at all, but when he did, he trained himself not to sleep soundly. Part of being a high-functioning sociopath - he was always alert.

This dream was hardly even a dream - it was just a bunch of mist. Dark mist, an almost black shade of blue. Then, a man stepped out of the mist and swiftly changed Sherlock's life.

Sherlock tried to deduce the man by his appearance, but he couldn't. He just had an air about him that seemed to make him inhuman - almost alien - although the man was clearly human. At least, that was Sherlock's assumption. After all, there was no such thing as life in outer space... was there? No, there wasn't. All of Sherlock's senses and intuition suggested that there wasn't.

"Hello, Sherlock," the man said. He had a smile on his face - a sad smile, like they were old friends who would never meet again.

Sherlock, in one of those rare instances that everyone in New Scotland Yard _yearned_ to see, was confused. "Who are you?" he asked. It was a fairly dull question, but Sherlock had no idea who this man was. He had no choice but to be dull, no matter how much he hated doing that. Immediately, Sherlock realized the inherent stupidity of the question. He was having a dream, so the man was obviously a figment of his imagination.

Except it didn't _feel_ like a dream. It felt real. But often times, dreams did feel real. Not for Sherlock, though. He was more intelligent than most people - he could typically distinguish between dream and reality. But this was harder. Whatever this mist-filled place was, he felt like he was actually there.

"You don't know me yet," the man said. "I might as well introduce myself." He walked up to Sherlock and outstretched his hand. "Hello. I'm the Doctor."

Sherlock stared at him. "The Doctor? That's your name? Doctor who?"

The man - the Doctor - laughed a little sadly. "Just the Doctor. Nothing else."

"That makes no logical sense."

"Does it need to?" This "Doctor" man dropped his hand to his side.

"Yes, it does!"

"Well, you see, 'The Doctor' is just my _nom de guerre_. I do have a real name, but I only tell it to my closest friends. I do consider you one of my closest friends, but since you don't know me yet, I can't rightfully tell you. It's one of the drawbacks of being a time traveller."

"_Time traveller__‽_ That's utter nonsense."

The Doctor let out a sharp laugh. "Oh? Nonsense, you say? As nonsensical as this?" He waved a hand, indicating the entire mist-filled room, or landscape, or whatever it was. "Think about it. What's the last thing you can remember before being here?"

"I was..." Sherlock dug through the archives of his mind palace, trying to find the most recent memory. "I was... oh, no. Nonononononononono-"

"What?" the Doctor asked.

"I was running as fast as I could. I needed to go back to the flat for something... John. I had to tell him something. Then, all of a sudden, a car came barreling towards me. I don't even know what the driver was doing, but I didn't have time to get out of his way and..."

"You were hit." The Doctor finished.

Sherlock nodded gravely. "That gives me three possible options for where I am right now. I'm either in heaven - unlikely - in a coma and dreaming - somewhat likely - or living my life with short-term memory loss due to the accident - also somewhat likely, but given my profession, I doubt that is the case. For my sake, I'm hoping it's the second of the three."

The Doctor smiled a bit. "You're correct in your deductions. You are indeed in a coma, although that will end in five, four, three-" He made a motion with his hand like he was dropping something on the ground. "Goodbye, Sherlock. Have fun with my past selves!"

"What? Wait! Don't do that! I still have to ask you something!" Sherlock shouted.

"He's awake!" said the doctor. The doctor, with a lowercase "d."

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**To be continued...**

**Next time on _The Adventure of the Dozen Doctors_: **_The house was practically falling apart. The shutters were falling off, the wood decomposing and the roof completely demolished. No one had lived there in a long time. Sherlock put his hand against the stone wall that surrounded the house. His fingers touched an engraved symbol of two interlocking circles..._


	2. The Mystery Begins

**Author's Note: This says "Chapter Eight, Part One" at the start because the chapters are numbered from the Doctor's perspective. From Sherlock's perspective, this is chapter _one_, part one. The "part one" is due to the fact that Chapter 8/Chapter 1 is much longer than the prologue, and I want to keep all installments a similar length. This means the the "next time" preview from the prologue appears in this _chapter_, but not in this installment. ANYWAY...**

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**CHAPTER EIGHT, PART ONE: ****The Mystery Begins**

_Baker Street Hospital_

_5 March 2014_

_2:12 PM_

Sherlock sat bolt upright, a feat somewhat complicated by the IV tubes in his arms and the heavyish package on his chest.

"Whoa there, Mr Holmes, don't get up so quickly," said the doctor, still with a lowercase "d."

Sherlock looked around frantically. "Where is he?" he asked, somewhat disoriented.

"Where's who?" said another lowercase doctor.

"There was a man here... wasn't there? A man who called himself a doctor, so I assume he was one of your colleagues. He dropped this on my chest." He held up the package. It felt like a thick, heavy metal disk, engraved with some design and wrapped in brown paper.

"Mr Holmes, there was no one here. We have been here since you first came in. You just need to rest."

"NO! He was here! He came and gave me this!" He gestured with the package. "And how long have I been unconscious, anyway?" He stroked his chin. "Judging from the state of my beard, I'd say approximately one week?"

"Eight days, twenty-one hours, and..." The doctor glanced at the clock. "Twenty minutes."

Sherlock leaned back against the bed. "Hmm. That's odd."

"Why?"

"That's precisely eight and eight-ninths days, in other words, 8.888888 repeating."

John suddenly burst in the door of the room. "I got your call. Sherlock! How are you feeling?"

"Disconcerted."

"What's that thing on your chest?" John asked.

"I don't know what it is, only how it got here, although these doctors here don't seem to believe me. Although I can see why they wouldn't - it's not every day a coma patient suddenly wakes up and says that a man came to them in a dream, claimed he was a time traveller, and left the patient a package."

"We get this kind of thing all the time," one of the doctors told John. "It's pretty common, actually."

"Not with Sherlock!" John exclaimed. "He's normally the most rational person I know! I have no idea why he would make up an insane story like this!"

"Because I didn't." Sherlock sighed. "He was actually here. How else did this package get here, anyway?"

"I... hmm," said the doctor. "It's odd, really. One moment, it _definitely_ wasn't there. The next, it was, but it seemed like it had been there the whole time."

Meanwhile, Sherlock was unwrapping the package. The object inside tumbled out onto his lap, revealing that there was a message written in blue ink on the inside of the wrapper.

Sherlock read the message and sharply inhaled.

"John?" Sherlock suddenly said. "Can you bring me my clothes? I need to be someplace."

"Sherlock, I really think you need to-"

"NOW, John! This is literally a matter of life and death!"

Sherlock was not the type to misuse the word "literally," so John instantly knew he was serious. However, Sherlock's safety came first. "Sherlock, you really need to rest-"

"NO!" Sherlock grabbed the IV tubes and ripped them out of his arm, throwing the sheets off his bed and standing upright in a few moments. Sherlock was suddenly aware that he was not wearing pants. This was awkward. Well, it would have been awkward for anyone else, but given the fact that Sherlock had gone to Buckingham Palace wearing a sheet, Sherlock didn't really care.

"SHERLOCK!"

"John, get me my clothes. And my coat. And my phone."

John sighed and jogged out of the room to the closet in which they kept patients' clothing (coincidentally down the hall from Sherlock's room). When he came back, Sherlock was (of course) terrorizing the doctors with his deductions.

"...you are a non-smoker who got interested in the medical field of work because your mother almost died in a surgery when you were a teenager... no younger than... fifteen? No, fourteen."

The doctor was speechless. Everyone was. John sighed and gestured with the clothing.

"Sherlock?"

Sherlock turned to John. "Right. Yes. Thank you." He took the clothes and set them on the bed next to the package wrapper. Quickly getting dressed (everyone was relieved that he had underwear on), he grabbed the wrapper and the object it had contained, and sprinted out the door.

John quickly followed, but Sherlock whirled around. "Don't come with me. I understand that you really do want to, but this is... shall we say, a more _personal_ matter than usual. I'll fill you in on the details once the situation is less urgent."

"Sherlock, this is not how we roll and you know it! You can't abandon me right as you go and do something that could very probably be dangerous. We need to do this together. Also, you just woke up from an eight-day coma induced by getting hit by a car and colliding with a phone box."

"Phone box? What phone box?"

"As you were flying through the air after the collision, you hit your head on the corner of a phone box. It's funny - I never noticed it before, but it feels like it's always been there. Even weirder is the fact that it's a model that was discontinued in the 1970s."

Sherlock stopped walking in the middle of the hallway and felt the back of his head. Sure enough, there was a bandage wrapped around his cranium. He felt where the impact had been, and jolt of pain went through his head. It was unlike him to scream, so he didn't. Instead, he let out a sort of muffled yelp.

"Sherlock, are you alright?"

"John, are you _sure_ that you've never seen that phone box before?"

"Positive. Why?"

"I've read up on that. It seems that phone boxes - of that exact design - have been appearing and disappearing without a trace. Sometimes people don't notice them, or if they do, it feels like they've always been there. There was a website a few years ago... it might still be online. But nothing's been posted for several years, so I can't be certain." Sherlock stuffed the object from the package into his pocket and pressed his fingers to his temples.

"Do you think that your accident and the website are related?"

"It's the only logical solution." Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut. What was the name of the webpage? Oh, God, everything was so fuzzy since he'd gotten hit in the head. Well, he remembered everything else, but from the point in time in which he had gotten hit by the car and he had the dream, it was all fuzzy. And the name of this website wasn't coming either. It was almost as if something was blocking him from remembering.

Then it hit him, as abruptly as the car had.

_Doctor who?_

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**To be continued...**


	3. Zero Point

**AN: I'm publishing this a few days ahead of schedule because I'll be on vacation, without Internet access, for the next two weeks.**

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**CHAPTER EIGHT, PART TWO: Zero Point**

Sherlock opened the hospital door, said goodbye to John, and started walking away. He took out the object from his pocket as he walked and examined it. He couldn't deduce anything from it, so there was really no point to looking at it. However, something about it seemed to draw him in. It was a metal disk, about ten centimeters across and two thick. Engraved on one side was an odd swirling design, kind of like a figure-eight filled in with spirals.

Sherlock said nothing as he left the hospital, putting the disk back in his pocket and turning his attention to the wrapper. He cross-referenced the address written on it with the comprehensive street map of southern Britain that he had memorized, and set off in the right direction, pondering the message written under the address.

_Hello Sherlock._

_If you're reading this, it means I'm never going to see you again. But it also means you've still got several times to meet me before you part ways with me for the last time. We've had/We'll have some great times, and some not-so great times, and some times that are just odd._

_ Right now, you should be walking to the address I've written above._

A few sentences were scratched out here.

_In that house, you will find something that you will probably not find very disturbing, but if the version of you that you will be by the end of this whole bizarre escapade were to see it, he would likely scream, break down and sob._

Sherlock continued to walk down the street, John staring at him from the hospital doors, confused by Sherlock's complete silence. Sherlock continued his brisk walk, taking off the idiotic bandage on his head despite the fact that he was still in pain. He combed his hair with his fingers and threw the bandage away in a nearby trash can. He continued to read the message.

_This will be an interesting adventure for you. I can't tell you more than that. One of the rules about being a time traveller is that I can't tell someone about something that hasn't happened. I can tell you this - this will be unlike any case you have ever solved before. This will be different than the dominatrix. This will be different than Baskerville. This will be different than Jim Moriarty._

_As you will hear me say not very soon, this will be fantastic._

The message was signed with an intricate design made up of multiple concentric and interlocking circles.

Sherlock put the message back in his pocket. He popped his collar up and tightened his scarf. His brisk walk slowed as he reached the address.

The house was practically falling apart. The shutters were falling off, the wood decomposing and the roof completely demolished. No one had lived there in a long time.

Sherlock put his hand against the stone wall that surrounded the house. His fingers touched an engraved symbol of two interlocking circles, and when he moved his hand to the right, he found another. Looking along the wall, he saw that there was a long chain of the symbols. He made a mental note of this and walked inside the house.

Immediately, he knew that something was definitely not right in this house. Whoever had lived here was surely insane - the walls were covered with the same interlocking circles, messily painted over and over in multiple colors. Sherlock ran his fingers against them as he walked, following the chain wherever it would take him in this house. _Wait, what?_ He looked at his fingers. They were covered in the paint. _So someone still lives here? No, that's ridiculous. Someone must have just committed an act of vandalism._

Sherlock walked up a deteriorating staircase, looking at the circles. No, not circles. What he had thought were interlocking circles were, in fact, a seemingly endless chain of number eights.

"_And how long have I been unconscious, anyway?" He stroked his chin. "Judging from the state of my beard, I'd say approximately one week?"_

"_Eight days, twenty-one hours, and..." The doctor glanced at the clock. "Twenty minutes."_

_Sherlock leaned back against the bed. "Hmm. That's odd."_

"_Why?"_

"_That's precisely eight and eight-ninths days, in other words, 8.888888 repeating."_

Sherlock again looked at the paint on his fingers. The top layer of eights had been painted in bright green. Under that were layers of dark blue, tan, red, lemon yellow... Someone had had a lot of paint and a lot of time on their hands.

On the second-floor landing, all of the eights suddenly converged. They all seemed to be _flowing_ down from a second staircase, which Sherlock quickly ascended, brushing aside cobwebs as he went.

The third floor was the top one, and by far the most rotten. The lack of a roof had exposed this floor to the effects of precipitation, doing extensive damage to the wooden floors and tattered carpeting. The eights, however, had been painted recently, so they had not been washed away.

Taking care not to get paint on the soles of his shoes, Sherlock opened the door from under which all of the multicolored eights were spewing. In the room, he noticed this:

There was a large circle in the centre of the room.

The circle was, actually, a zero.

There was a decimal point between the zero and the eights, forming the decimal 0.8 repeating.

Inside the zero, there was a man.

The man was lying on the ground.

The man was bleeding.

The man was bleeding a lot.

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**To be continued...**

**AN: Next installment will be a bit shorter, sadly, but oh well.**


	4. (Re)united

**AN: The Doctor is the Eighth Doctor, post-Big Finish timeframe, which in my personal chronology were his final adventures before regenerating. Like I said last time, this installment's kind of short. Sorry. :( ANYWAY...**

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**CHAPTER EIGHT, PART THREE: (Re)united**

Sherlock rushed over to help the man. He had short, curly, brown hair and was wearing a leather peacoat.

The man reached out to touch him. "Sh... Sherlock..."

"How do you know my name?" Sherlock asked, dumbstruck.

The man smiled weakly. "Isn't it obvious?"

"Oh no. Don't tell me you're the Doctor?"

"Right in one."

"But... how? You look so different, and I've already met your future self, so you can't possibly die now!"

"It's a quirk of my species's biology. We have 13 lives, you see. I seem to have, ah, _used up_ my eighth. As soon as the effects of this injury-" He winced in pain. "-become severe enough, I'll die and regenerate into a new body. Or, rather, that would be the case had I not been shot with a srangorite bullet."

"Srangorite?"

"A mineral mined on the planet Srangor. Inhibits regeneration. Shame, that. Old Gallifreyan saying - nine is the start of a new era. Would've wanted to be there for it."

"Gallifreyan?" So many questions. But, in Sherlock's profession, questions weren't uncommon (although typically he was the one who _answered_ the questions; he rarely _asked_).

"Gallifrey. That's where I'm-" He groaned and winced in pain. "-from," he finished, collapsing back onto the ground.

Sherlock gently rolled the Doctor over to examine the bullet wound. It was on the right side of the body - Sherlock's left - near where his lung was. It had actually, from what Sherlock could see, penetrated the lung. In attempt to stop the bleeding until he could figure out what to do, he put a hand against the bullet wound.

Underneath his palm, he felt a tiny, faint heartbeat. Slightly confused (typically you would find the heart on the left side of the chest), he moved his hand to feel the left side of the Doctor's chest.

Underneath his palm was again, a heartbeat, though slightly stronger than before.

Sherlock jerked his hand away. "You have-"

"-two hearts," the Doctor finished, wincing again.

"But how? How is that even possible?"

"Another quirk of my species's biology."

"What do you call yourselves?"

The Doctor slowly inhaled, trying to overcome the pain. "We call ourselves Time Lords."

"Time Lords," Sherlock repeated, making a note of this. He went back to putting pressure on the wound, trying to ignore the unsettling feeling of the heart beneath his hand. "Who did this to you?"

The Doctor shook his head. "I don't know... I don't remember."

Sherlock looked him in the eyes. "You've been shot, and you know exactly what kind of bullet it is, and you don't know who shot you?"

"No, it's... hmm. I remember making an agreement with... someone. I can't recall what they looked like. Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if I had made a deal with a disembodied voice." He groaned in pain and shifted around a bit on the floor. "But whoever I made that deal with, it's the last thing I can remember. Then... cold. Very cold. Then I was here and nearly dead."

Suddenly, there was a noise. Footsteps. Sherlock and the Doctor were not alone in this house. And whoever had just come in was ascending the stairs.

* * *

**To be continued...**

Next time on _The Adventure of the Dozen Doctors_: _Sherlock looked at the blood on his hands from putting pressure on the bullet wound. Whoever was coming was probably going to assume that he was the one that shot the Doctor. He attempted to shake the blood off of his hands, but they were still stained red._ Oh well, _he thought as he pulled a gun from his pocket._ Might as well go with it..._  
_


	5. All My Love To Long Ago

**AN: Now that school is back in session, some uploads might be behind schedule. Sorry :( We will keep writing though!**

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**CHAPTER ONE: ****All My Love To Long Ago**

Sherlock quickly dropped down and put his ear to the floor, analyzing the sound of the footsteps. _Hmm. Two people. Let's see... A man. Mid-50s. And... a teenage girl, sounds like. Yes, that's right. They're probably family, considering how close together they're walking._

Sherlock stood up and slowly backed away from the Doctor, awaiting the arrival of the people who had just entered. He looked at the blood on his hands from putting pressure on the bullet wound. Whoever was coming was probably not going to take this lightly, and probably assume that he was the one that shot him. He attempted to shake the blood off of his hands, but they were still stained red.

_Oh well,_ he thought as he pulled a gun from his pocket. _Might as well go with it._

As the footsteps reached the top of the stairs and started moving across the landing to the door, the man shouted, "Don't shoot! It will create a paradox, and we wouldn't want that, would we now, hmm?"

Sherlock facepalmed, probably getting the Doctor's blood on his nose. _Another_ time traveller? Was he another Doctor? How many versions of the same man - the same Doctor - could there be?

Sherlock put the gun back in his pocket and quickly deduced the duo - or rather the teenaged girl. The new man that had just entered with the girl was a total blank slate. Usually when he saw someone he saw words with his deductions. With this man, he only got question marks. It was as infuriating as Irene Adler (though at a completely different end of the spectrum).

Yes, this man was definitely the Doctor. He had that same alien feeling to him, as did the girl, confirming Sherlock's suspicions that they were family.

The dying Doctor smiled and made an attempt to sit up. It failed. Instead, he propped himself up on his elbows and said, "Good to see you again, One."

"As with you, Eight," the other Doctor said. "My TARDIS is parked a few blocks away, so we should be able to get there without too much trouble, hmm?"

"Yes..." Eight replied faintly. He was almost unconscious.

"Don't worry, Grandfather," the girl said. "We won't let anything happen to you."

"Thank you, Susan," Eight said.

As One and the girl - Susan - stooped down and picked up Eight, Sherlock spoke for the first time since they had entered. "Might as well point out - I didn't shoot him."

"Oh, we know," said One. "It said so in the message hypercube."

"I saw the message too," Susan said. "But why do you have blood on your hands and a gun?"

Sherlock pointed at Eight. "Blood from trying to help him out. Gun because I'm a high-functioning sociopath."

"High-functioning sociopath?" Susan asked.

"Do your research." Sherlock put the gun in his pocket. "We need to get him to the hospital."

"A hospital is not what this old boy needs," One said. "The effects of the srangorite bullet can only be countered by high levels of artron energy - only found in time vessels and on our home planet."

"So, you're taking him to your... TARDIS, did you call it?"

"Yes, I should think that would be the best location. We would take him to his own, you see, but the message he sent did not specify where it was."

Sherlock made some quick deductions. "Considering the relatively obvious fact that the message was sent from his relative future, he must have left that information out intentionally."

"Hmm. Yes, I would think so. I can only hope that he's not leading us into danger."

"I wouldn't worry about that. It would be quite odd if he put his past self in any danger, unless it was to protect the web of time."

"Grandfather, we must get going," Susan interjected.

"Off we go, then," One said. "Come with us, Sherlock."

Sherlock did not find it odd that the Doctor knew his name despite never having met him before, as it must have been mentioned in Eight's message.

The three of them hoisted Eight up into an awkward carry. By this point, he had completely passed out. It was a bit of a squeeze getting out the door and down the two flights of stairs, but eventually, they all made it out onto the street.

They attracted a couple stares, walking down the streets of London carrying a near-dead body, but really, they didn't care. All that mattered was getting Eight to the safety of an artron energy-irradiated TARDIS before his time ran out.

_Funny, isn't it,_ Sherlock thought. _A time traveller who's out of time._

Rounding a street corner, Sherlock found that they were in a familiar part of town. And a familiar face was walking towards them. No, make that running. And judging by who it was, the three of them were about to encounter some difficulties.

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**To be continued...**


	6. Old Friends In New Places

**CHAPTER SEVEN: ****Old Friends in New Places**

"Molly?" Sherlock asked, a bit startled. "What are you doing here?"

Molly Hooper quickly fixed her hair. Typical of her - she was so hopelessly in love with Sherlock she would probably stalk his house until he asked her out. If she didn't already.

"Hi, Sherlock," she said, almost embarassed. "Weren't you in the hospital?"

"I woke up and walked out." Sherlock turned to see her companion. "And you are?"

Molly's companion was kind of short, wearing a Panama hat and a blue-and-white zigzag sweater decorated with... were those question marks? The umbrella he carried also had a giant red question mark for a handle. _This man has to be another Doctor. Only he would dress so eccentrically._

"This is Doctor John Smith," Molly said, gesturing to the man near her. "Doctor Smith, this is-"

"Sherlock Holmes, yes," the man said with a slight Scottish accent, shaking Sherlock's hand. "I've... read your website. Very interesting cases, I must say."

Sherlock nodded. "Mm. Thank you."

Molly continued. "He's my new colleague. He's only been working with me a few days, but he has some impressive qualifications."

Sherlock nodded again, wondering what fake history this Doctor had made up for himself.

"We received an anonymous tip-off alerting us to a death in the abandoned house on Warwick Street. Why anybody would want to go in there, we don't know, but you've evidently beaten us to it. That body you're holding matches the description we received."

"The body? No, the man's-" Sherlock turned around to look at One, Eight, and Susan.

Eight wasn't breathing.

Susan checked for a pulse, then exchanged a look with her grandfather (the old one), then to Sherlock.

She shook her head.

"...dead," Sherlock finished. They'd run out of time.

Of course, being Sherlock with his strange ability to turn off his emotions, he decided to pretend that he didn't care.

"Molly, we need to get this man to a place with someone who can save him."

Molly stared at him, confused. "It's already too late for that. And Sherlock, you know I'm not supposed to do that. I mean, after the whole thing with the fall and all, they don't want me to go there without another body."

Sherlock's mind flashed to when he jumped off the hospital edge.

"And besides," the newly-arrived Doctor said, "you wouldn't want to rush this."

"That's irrelevant," Sherlock said, shaking his head. "I need to examine the body. Molly, you can walk away, I'm sure that Mycroft can-"

"She can't walk away," her "colleague" said. "She needs to do her job."

"I am afraid this man needs a... a certain type of treatment that no human hospital can provide," One said.

Molly gave him a strange look at his use of the word "human," but still wasn't convinced. "If that's the case, then there doesn't seem to be any point in trying to get him to wherever you want him to be. If he can't get the treatment he needs, he's going to die - and it seems an awful lot like he already has, which means he needs to be brought to the morgue."

Sherlock opened his mouth in protest, but Molly put her hand up. "Don't worry, the body will be taken care of. I'll let you know if I can get you in later, okay?"

Sherlock, One, and Susan reluctantly handed over Eight's body. Molly started to walk away, but the Doctor who was working with her stayed behind.

"Thank you for getting the body for us," he said under his breath.

Sherlock opened his mouth again, slightly confused. Susan patted him on the shoulder when that Doctor left.

"He had to preserve the Web of Time, Sherlock," she said. "He received a message from one of Grandfather's other incarnations telling him that this was what he had to do."

"We all received message cubes - me and all of my replacements," One continued. "And the conclusion of mine said that I needed to give you a push in the right direction before we parted ways."

"And that would be?" Sherlock asked.

One passed Sherlock a slip of paper. "Go to this address. You'll get more information there."

Sherlock nodded, still confused. He looked up to say thank you, but the pair was already gone.

* * *

**To be continued...**


	7. The Web of Time

**CHAPTER TWO: ****The Web of Time**

Sherlock walked around a bit until he found the address. It turned out to be a small cafe.

After standing outside for a brief bit, he walked inside. He sat down at one of the nearest tables and waited. It wasn't like he wouldn't be recognized.

Soon, a man walked in and sat down at Sherlock's table. He had black hair and was wearing a slightly battered jacket and grey checked trousers. He looked like he was in his 40s.

"Hello, Doctor," Sherlock said. "Which number are you?"

"The second," this new Doctor said.

"Your first said you could help me." He leaned closer. "I need answers."

"You need to shave," this Doctor said with a smile.

Sherlock's hand flew up to his face. He was embarrassed about the stubble. It was kind of unsightly, along with the nearly skeletal appearance from the lack of food from his coma.

The Doctor almost laughed. "You were in a coma for eight days. I will not hold that against you."

"What information can you give me about this whole business?" Sherlock asked.

"I can give you all the information I'm authorised to," the Doctor said. "However, I'd best be quick about this. The Time Lords have only given me a limited period to tell you this before they send me off on another mission. Irritating chaps, those."

"I see," Sherlock said. "You should simply give me the most basic details, then."

"Yes. Hm. I suppose I should start with the Medallion."

"The Medallion... You mean this object I woke up with?" Sherlock suddenly remembered he still had the disk on him. "Why would you - past, present, or future self - leave this with me?" he asked, gesturing with the medallion.

"Well, Sherlock, I think that first I should explain what it can do. The Medallion of Rassilon - that's its full name, you see - is a very powerful psychic artifact. It gives the owner the power to enter dreams, and can be transmitted anywhere in the universe merely by thinking about it."

"So that explains how I received it."

"Yes, exactly! I - well, a version of myself from centuries in my future, that is - sent it to you, but not before isomorphically linking it to his, er, my DNA, as well as that of my TARDIS. The medallion scans forward in time to detect if it will come into close proximity with me, then sends out an alert to the TARDIS, retroactively causing me to visit you! It's a confusing process, but I have no doubt you'll figure it out soon enough."

"But wouldn't that cause an ontological paradox?"

"Apparently not. I mean, the universe hasn't imploded yet, has it?" The Doctor smiled.

"Evidently not." Sherlock sighed, touching the wound on the back of his head.

"Why'd you take the bandage off?"

"What do you mean?"

"You were in a coma for days. You should have left it on."

"I hate hospitals. I hate bandages. There's really not much to explain."

"Ah, I see."

They sat in silence for a little while.

"Why was your future incarnation dying in an abandoned house?"

The Doctor smiled. "Glad you asked that."

"Can you explain?"

"No. It's my future incarnation, remember? He did - I did - give myself one clue, though."

"And?"

"He said that I should tell you... ah..." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded, slightly crumpled piece of paper. He unfolded it and began to read off of it. "He said that you shouldn't bother to try and find his body. Another one of us will help you with that."

Sherlock frowned. "I've never been one to follow the rules. You are probably well aware."

"This is something you need to follow."

"I suppose more paradoxes would ensue? The Web of Time needing to be protected and all that?"

"Yes, Sherlock. I'm sorry. But trust me, it's better this way. It will all turn out fine if the proper timeline is kept intact."

"How will I know if it's intact if you won't tell me what's going to happen?"

"Because if you mess up anything, one of us will tell you that you have. Also, as a general rule, I'd suggest not doing anything that my future selves have told you not to do."

Sherlock sighed. "If you know me at all, you know that again, I hate following orders."

The Doctor paused for a moment. "You know, Sherlock, here's the thing about time travel. As I once told a friend of mine, no one else in the universe can do what time-travelers do. And if the Web of Time is disrupted, the wonder that is time travel will be too dangerous to occur."

Silence fell between them. Finally Sherlock leaned back in his chair. "Well, what am I supposed to do while I wait for you?"

The Doctor smiled. "You'll think of something. You _are_ Sherlock Holmes, after all."

Sherlock suddenly spied someone outside the window of the café. It was a tall man, wearing bright red robes and a gigantic gold collar. He was understandably attracting quite a few glances from passersby.

"Doctor," Sherlock said. "I think your time here is up." He pointed at the man.

The Doctor harrumphed. "Well, Sherlock, I suppose I must leave you now. I look forward to seeing you again." He stood up, and grinned as he shook Sherlock's hand.

_And just like that, another one gone,_ Sherlock thought as the Doctor left.

* * *

**To be continued...**

**AN: The next chapter to be published will be the most recent chapter we've completed so far. We hope to be able to keep writing so that we can continue publishing chapters on a regular basis, but with school and all, it might be hard. On that somewhat worrisome note, see you next time!**


	8. Three Conversations

**AN: Sorry for publishing this chapter a day late. School's been pretty hectic, and my co-author and I haven't had a lot of time to write. Just telling you beforehand, though: this chapter is Doctor-lite. It's also one of the chapters that gives this story its T rating. So yeah...**

* * *

**CHAPTER SIX, PART ONE: ****Three Conversations**

Sherlock stayed in the cafe for a while, then decided to leave. He made the trek back to 221B, the night air somehow cooler than normal.

He reached the black door and knocked a few times. Mrs. Hudson answered.

"Oh! Sherlock dear, are you alright?" she asked, hugging him. "I heard that you were in a terrible accident!"

"Mrs. Hudson, I'm quite alright, thank you," he said, squeezing her tightly and letting her go. "It was a minor accident."

"Are you sure? John said it was serious."

Sherlock smiled as he walked in. "My head wound is the worst of my injuries. I'm perfectly fine."

Mrs. Hudson caught a glimpse of the cut. "Oh dear! Sherlock, your head…"

"It hardly hurts anymore," he remarked, starting up the stairs.

"Are you sure?"

"Mrs. Hudson, I am fine."

"Sherlock, you know that you need to tell me if you're hurt. I can give you a bandage for your head - why didn't the hospital give you one? Oh, the state of medical treatment these days…" She walked away, looking for something to give to Sherlock. When she came back, he was already gone.

* * *

"My God, Sherlock, where have you been?" John demanded.

"I met the man. The man who was in my dream."

"Really? I mean, _reeeeeeally_?" John asked skeptically.

"Yes, I met him four times, with four different faces, because apparently, he's a time-travelling, face-changing alien from the planet Gallifrey, and I met him out of order, due to the time-travel element of all that, which means that it was possible for him to be murdered, help me take his own body to a safe location, intercept me and his other self with his other other self's body, and give me some advice, in that order, and also, Molly has known him for a while, and I - and you, I presume - are going to meet him several more times as we work out who killed him, and have you got all that? Good."

"I'm sorry, I sort of lost track after 'time-travelling, face-changing alien.'"

"Oh, for God's sake, John, you have to learn to _keep up_!"

"You know what, Sherlock, it's been a long day and I'm very tired. Explain it to me again in the morning." With that, he walked into his room and shut the door.

* * *

Sherlock heard a soft moan come from his coat pocket. He was glad he'd turned his ringer down, so John didn't hear _whose_ moan it was.

He picked the phone up. On it, there was a single text.

_What happened? __-I_

Sherlock smiled. Usually the woman - THE Woman - would have signed her name as _-IA, _but since Mycroft was probably monitoring his texts, _-I _was a sufficient acronym for _Irene Adler._

He quickly texted back:

_Minor accident. Not a big deal. __-SH_

The response was almost immediate.

_You haven't texted me in eight days. What happened? __-I_

A brief conversation followed:

_I was in a coma. Not a big deal. __-SH_

_WHAT? Sherlock, how did that happen? __-I_

_I got hit by a car. How else do most comas happen these days? __-SH_

_Serious health issues that could get you killed. __-I_

_Says the woman who has sex for a living. __-SH_

_I USE PROTECTION. __-I_

_I don't think beating the other person senseless with a riding crop counts as protection. __-SH_

_Be glad I've never done that to you. __-I_

_If you are trying to compliment me, you are failing. __-SH_

_Would you like me to compliment you more? I can do that. __-I_

_Well, if you can do it without sending a red flag to the Iceman, I'd appreciate it. __-SH_

_The fact that you said the Iceman probably sent a red flag to the Iceman. __-I_

_Whatever. You think I care about him right now? You're the one I've been missing, not him. __-SH_

_Oh, are you FLIRTING with me? __-I_

_I just took a screencap of that. So I can have a record of it. __-I_

_Or so you can blackmail me. __-SH_

_Perhaps both. __-I_

_To be honest, getting blackmailed by you wouldn't be half as bad as the alternative. __-SH_

_Getting blackmailed by your brother? __-I_

_Yes. __-SH_

_Well, I should probably start complimenting you. Before someone notices that I'm on a street corner with a moaning man's voice coming out of my phone. __-I_

(Sherlock had, as a joke, switched her ringtone for him to his own voice. The rest is history.)

_Go ahead. __-SH_

_**[This piece was censored for your protection. It involved profane comments about Sherlock's anatomy and comparing male genetalia to Russia]**_

_You definitely sent the Iceman a red flag. __-SH_

_You didn't like those? __-I_

_No, I liked them alright. It seems that Russia is indeed very pleased with your comments right now. __-SH_

_You're too easy to turn on. __-I_

_I am wounded by that accusation. __-SH_

_No you're not. You like it. __-I_

_You're right. I do like it. __-SH_

_I can't believe it. I'm the only woman in the world who can turn Sherlock Holmes on with only a text. __-I_

_You're the only woman in the world who can turn me on. The only one. __-SH_

_Really? Can guys turn you on? __-I_

_Why are you asking that? __-SH_

_Because I'm curious. Besides, I don't care if you are. I'm bi-you know that. That's a requirement in my profession anyway, otherwise I wouldn't know what turns on the girls. __-I_

_I should go...John might notice that moans are coming from my room. __-SH_

_You kept your ringer on? __-I_

_Yes, but low. __-SH_

_I should probably get to bed, too. I have two appointments tomorrow. __-I_

_Goodnight, love. __-SH_

_Goodnight, sweetie. __-I_

* * *

The texts ended.

Sherlock went to sleep.

Approximately one hour later, a booming voice rang out through the flat. "WAKE UP, SHERLOCK HOLMES! WE'VE GOT A HOSPITAL TO ROB!"

* * *

**To be continued...**

**AN: Next installment is about 1/3 done. We'll try to get it published on schedule (November 7), but we might not be able to. See you then!**


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